Mahzarin R. Banaji, a trailblazing Indian-origin psychologist and professor at Harvard University, has been honored with the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Social Sciences.
The prestigious award was presented last week in Bilbao, Spain, recognizing her groundbreaking contributions to understanding human attitudes and implicit bias.
A Celebrated Moment in Bilbao
Established in 2008, the Frontiers of Knowledge Awards celebrate excellence in science, culture, and the arts, spotlighting individuals whose original contributions have had widespread global impact.
This year’s laureates, including Banaji and 19 other winners, were welcomed in Bilbao, a city known for its iconic Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim Museum, with their portraits displayed on airport signage and city lampposts.
The recognition culminated in a Wednesday night gala and an official award ceremony on Thursday, where Banaji and her fellow recipients were honored for advancing global understanding of human social cognition.
A Pioneer in Implicit Bias Research
Banaji is best known for her influential work with Anthony Greenwald of the University of Washington on the Implicit Association Test (IAT), a tool introduced on the web in 1998 that reveals hidden biases and unconscious associations.
The IAT quickly became the most widely used instrument for studying implicit attitudes, changing how scholars, institutions, and educators approach prejudice, discrimination, and social behavior.
“The single most decisive event of my early career was meeting and working with Tony Greenwald,” Banaji said. “In our early work, we prioritized the development of a method to measure implicit attitudes and beliefs, and it is today the most widely used instrument to study attitudes and beliefs by a simple count of published work.”
Their research has had ripple effects across disciplines, including psychology, sociology, and political science.
From Secunderabad to Harvard
Born and raised in Secunderabad, India, Banaji began her academic journey at Nizam College, earning a BA, followed by an MA in psychology from Osmania University in Hyderabad.
She later moved to the United States, holding a faculty role at Yale University before joining Harvard in 2001.
Today, she serves as the Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics in Harvard’s Department of Psychology and continues to be a leading voice in social cognition and bias research.
The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award
The BBVA Foundation, the nonprofit arm of Spanish banking group BBVA, has hosted the awards annually for 17 years.
Each of the eight categories comes with an unrestricted prize of €400,000. Notably, 31 past laureates have gone on to receive the Nobel Prize, underlining the global prestige of the award.
This year, Banaji was one of five U.S.-based psychologists recognized in the Social Sciences category for reshaping how human attitudes are studied and interpreted.
“In choosing to recognize the five of us, born in the 1930s, 40s, 50s, and 60s… you recognize not only us but our intellectual ancestors who surely imagined but did not live to see a thriving science of attitudes become worthy of a recognition such as this,” Banaji said in her acceptance speech.
Looking Ahead: AI and Human Bias
Banaji’s current research extends into the realm of machine psychology, where she studies how human attitudes are mirrored, and sometimes magnified, in large language models (LLMs) and artificial intelligence systems.
“Human attitudes and beliefs are clearly embedded in large language models, often emerging from LLMs even more starkly than in humans,” she explained. “Given the rapid and unregulated evolution of AI today, perhaps this BBVA Foundation Award will serve to alert the corporate owners of AI to more thoughtfully consider a technology powerful enough to determine the future of life on Earth.”
Her comments highlight the growing need for ethical AI development grounded in psychological science.
Global Impact and Lasting Legacy
Through her work, Mahzarin Banaji has not only transformed psychology but also influenced critical areas such as education, public policy, AI ethics, and organizational behavior.
Her legacy continues to inspire researchers, policymakers, and technologists worldwide.
As her research pushes into the frontiers of artificial intelligence and social ethics, Banaji’s voice remains essential in shaping a more conscious and equitable world.
